The present invention relates to a use of sex hormones for prevention and therapy of immunodeficiency disease.
Immunodeficiency disease refers to a deficiency in immunological response, either in that mediated by humoral antibodies or in that mediated by immune lymphoid cells. Including AIDS (acquired immunological deficiency syndrome) as a typical example, immunodeficiency disease is attracting many people's interest due to its unfavorable prognosis. AIDS is known to occur frequently in homosexuals, being characterized by the clinical conditions such as pneumonia, sarcoma, etc., and to incur a high rate of death of more than 70% because of the destruction of the immune response. It is also known that the helper T cells are specifically put into disorder.
As a result of the search into the causes for the frequent occurrences of AIDS among the homosexuals, the present inventors have found out the following facts as the causes:
(1) As shown in the following Table 1, human semen contains large amount of prostaglandin E.sub.2,
(2) In vivo animal experiments reveals that prostaglandin E.sub.2 causes lowering of cellular immunological competence of male lymphocyte, but prostaglandin E.sub.2 does not cause lowering of cellular immunological competence of female lymphocyte,
(3) The cause for the aptitude for the homosexual male to be affected by the pathogens such as AIDS virus is that prostaglandin E.sub.2 which is contained in a large amount in semen is injected into rectum by homosexual act and absorbed into body to cause lowering of cellular immunological competence.
They have further found out:
(4) that prostaglandin D.sub.2, A.sub.2 and J.sub.2 have the actions to lower cellular immunological competence on both male and female, and
(5) that lowering of the immunological competence caused by prostaglandins in both male and female can be recovered by administration of male or female steroid hormone.
The present invention has been made on the basis of the above findings.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ Concentration of prostaglandin in human semen 1st time (.mu.g/ml) 2nd time (.mu.g/ml) ______________________________________ PGE.sub.2 66.7 78.1 PGF.sub.2.alpha. 7.8 9.1 PGD.sub.2 0.17 0.19 ______________________________________ (NOTE): Determined by radioimmunoassay. Samples were collected from two men.